Former Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere says Arsene Wenger is like a 'father figure' to him.
Wenger gave Wilshere his first taste of senior football with the Gunners and he continues to offer the midfielder support through his ups and downs.
Wilshere recently left West Ham by mutual consent after making 16 league appearances in two years, and he has revealed just how helpful Wenger has been throughout his experience in the game.
"I don’t want to say he was like my dad because he wasn’t my dad and my dad would probably be annoyed – but he was almost like that father figure," Wilshere told TalkSPORT.
"Even now, when I was going through all this with West Ham, I picked up the phone and spoke to him, asked for his advice.
"He’s just that guy for me in football, almost like the godfather of football where I just listen to his advice and straight away I am like ‘I need to follow his advice’.
"He’s guided me from a young player to a senior player at Arsenal. He was unreal for me."
Wilshere also reflected on that iconic game against Barcelona in 2011 when he helped Arsenal to a famous win at the age of just 19.
"We were playing against the best team in the world at the time," he added. "I was only a young player and that was sort of when I went to the next level, in a way.
"There were other games where everything just happens, goes well, everything you do comes off.
"When I scored two goals for England, I’d been out for three months before that with an ankle problem, I remember coming into that game and I’d only played a couple of games for Arsenal at the end of the season and I remember going into that game thinking ‘I’m ready for this’ and it was probably one of my best performances.
"Everything went well, scored two goals. Sometimes it’s like that in football. When you’ve been out for a while and you come back and you’re so eager to impress and do well everything just happens and flows naturally."
